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Wait, is weed legal now?
00:17:54
Why Trump is reclassifying marijuana to be less restricted.
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- [00:00]
Asma Khalid
America is changing, and so is the world.
- [00:04]
Tristan Redman
But what's happening in America isn't just the cause of global upheaval. It's also a symptom of disruption that's happening everywhere.
- [00:12]
Asma Khalid
I'm Asma Khalid in Washington, D.C. i'm.
- [00:15]
Tristan Redman
Tristan Redman in London, and this is the Global Story.
- [00:19]
Asma Khalid
Every weekday, we'll bring you a story from this intersection where the world and America meet.
- [00:24]
Tristan Redman
Listen on BBC.com or wherever you get your podcasts.
- [00:33]
Martine Powers
For more than 50 years, the US government has classified marijuana as what's known as a Schedule 1 drug, meaning that it's dangerous, it's bad for you, and that it belongs in the same category as LSD and heroin. But that could change soon, thanks to a directive from President Trump.
- [00:52]
Donald Trump
Today, I'm pleased to announce that I will be signing an executive order to reschedule marijuana from a Schedule 1 to a Schedule 3 control substance with legitimate medical uses. We have people begging for me to.
- [01:08]
Martine Powers
Do this, and Trump isn't wrong. For years, people have argued that marijuana should be taken seriously as a drug with therapeutic effects. And this isn't just a line from your neighborhood stoner. The idea of making marijuana more widely accessible has broad appeal.
- [01:27]
Donald Trump
I can't tell you. I think I probably have received more phone calls on this, on doing what we're doing. I don't think I received any calls on the other side of it.
- [01:39]
Martine Powers
What you're hearing here is striking. You've got a sitting Republican president speaking so highly of a drug that's illegal under federal law, despite the fact that historically, Republicans have usually been the ones who are tough on drugs. But in this moment, the politics around marijuana are changing in a big way. From the newsroom of the Washington Post, this is Post Reports. I'm Martine powers. It's Monday, December 22nd. Today, I'm talking with health reporter David Ovalle about what reclassifying marijuana could mean for access to this drug and what happened to the Republicans. War on weed. All right, so, David, I can't be the only person who doesn't actually know what reclassification of a drug means. Like, I don't know what Schedule one is or Schedule three is. Can you explain, like, what exactly is happening here? And what does it mean that a drug is going from Schedule 1 to Schedule 3?
- [02:49]
David Ovalle
So the controlled Substances act that was passed by Congress decades ago under President Nixon outlined different categories, different tiers of drugs.
- [02:58]
Donald Trump
America's public enemy number one in the United States is drug abuse. In order to fight and defeat this enemy, it is necessary to wage a new all out offensive.
- [03:14]
David Ovalle
And it's the riskiness of the potential for abuse and also whether there's any medicinal value for a particular drug. Right. So Schedule 1 is like the, the riskiest of drugs. Right. There's a high potential for abuse and there's no medicinal value. So you have things like lsd, heroin, and then of course, marijuana, which has been a, you know, a source of contention for many, many years, even as so many states have legalized marijuana either for medical purposes or for recreational purposes. If this rescheduling goes through, marijuana will now join Schedule 3, which includes prescription drugs like ketamine, like testosterone, like Tylenol, with codeine, which is used for, you know, cough syrup, basically, like extra strength cough syrup. So this is a big deal. This is a big change in federal policy. Now what it means practically that is going to be, you know, still up in the air. And it might not be as much as your layperson thinks, but it certainly is a big message in federal marijuana policy.
- [04:30]
Martine Powers
And I want to talk more about those implications in a second. But, but just to be clear, this is not the same thing as saying that, that marijuana has been legalized federally.
- [04:41]
Tristan Redman
Right?
- [04:42]
Martine Powers
Right.
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David Ovalle
Marijuana is not being legalized. It's not even being decriminalized. It's just fewer restrictions. Right. There could be some.
- [04:53]
Martine Powers
Changes.
- [04:54]
David Ovalle
You know, it's just going to be treated a little bit differently. There should be fewer restrictions on the medical research side. And then of course, I think for the, the big deal is going to be with the ability for cannabis companies to be able to write off business expenses.
- [05:09]
Martine Powers
Why did Trump call for this change? Like, why is Trump and the federal government now basically saying we think that there might be medicinal value in marijuana and that it might be less risky even if we're going to keep it illegal?
- [05:25]
David Ovalle
Well, so this actually goes back to the Biden administration. And this was actually a proposal that the Justice Department under Biden submitted.
- [05:35]
Donald Trump
Look, folks, no one should be in jail merely for using or possessing marijuana, period. Far too many lives have been upended because of failed approach to marijuana. And I'm committed to righting those wrongs. You have my word on it.
- [05:48]
David Ovalle
The Justice Department had taken the lead on doing this, which it's supposed to do, but it had been kind of stalled in kind of administrative hearings and administration administrative review. And so it's kind of been in limbo. So what Trump is doing is, is really just following what the Biden administration had already promised to do. And there's, you know, still a lot of tension about the public health benefits of it. But I think, for the most part, people tend to think that, you know, marijuana is not something that you should be going to prison for, for. For years and years and years. And while this does not decriminalize, it does send a powerful message about the priority that marijuana has for law enforcement.
- [06:24]
Tristan Redman
Mm.
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Martine Powers
Yeah. I have to say, there aren't many issues that are being tackled by the federal government right now that you could say, well, Trump is just finishing what the Biden administration started or carrying out what. What Biden had already had already planned. Can you talk a little bit more about why this is something Trump cares about and what his stance has been on marijuana previously?
- [06:47]
David Ovalle
Well, you know, Trump is not someone that cares much for substances. He's famously not a drinker. But I think, you know, I think he realizes it's a politically popular thing to do, despite pushback and objections from leaders within the Republican Party. That being said, as with many things with the Trump administration, there's sort of some built in contradictions, because at the same time, he's been launching this, you know, very aggressive war on drugs and targeting drugs like cocaine and fentanyl, but also pardoning people who have been involved in drug trafficking. So, you know, it's a little bit of some. Some contradictions in there, but I think, broadly speaking, I think it's something that he realizes is popular.
- [07:28]
Martine Powers
Yeah, I think this tension is really interesting. As you say, a lot of Americans at this point say, you know, look, I can see that there are medicinal benefits of marijuana or that people shouldn't go to prison or especially not for a long time for buying or selling marijuana. At the same time, I mean, the Republican is the party of Ronald Reagan. The war on drugs historically has been really tough on drugs. And as you said, Trump himself is making this case that he is tough on other drugs. So can you talk a little bit more about how, you know, the Republicans who are pushing back on Trump with this reclassification of marijuana? What are they saying, and why are they not on board with Trump's desire to let marijuana be considered a less serious drug?
- [08:18]
David Ovalle
Well, some of the more conservative Republicans have really expressed concerns about the health impacts. Right. For example, Congressman Pete Sessions of Texas posted a video to Instagram strongly disagreeing with the change.
- [08:31]
Donald Trump
It's completely inconsistent. Why? We're trying to gun down those who are bringing in marijuana, heroin, and other dangerous drugs to our country, and yet we declassify that From a Schedule 1 to a Schedule 3.
- [08:46]
David Ovalle
Sessions and other House leaders wrote A letter before the executive order was announced asking Trump to reconsider. They just alleged that the Biden administration had done this as a political ploy to get votes and that Trump was just sort of following suit and that it really was sending a dangerous message to the youth and that it was just going to enrich big marijuana companies and that it would even benefit the, you know, Chinese criminal organizations that have really gotten into the, the cannabis industry. So there's, there's a lot of push back within the gop, and there was people within the Trump administration that had been going back and forth opposing it internally. But as with many things with cannabis, it doesn't cut neatly across party lines. And so there are plenty of public health experts and researchers and medical experts that don't necessarily skew to the right that also have their concerns about just how quickly the marijuana market has expanded. And the reason for that is the products, the marijuana, whether it's edibles, you're just your average joint or vapes or any other kind of marijuana products, just are not the same as it was decades ago. Right. The potency can be much, much more powerful. You have products that have sort of proliferated in such a loosely regulated space and the state level and sort of in some of the gray markets in other states where it's not legal that, you know, there is some valid concerns, not just from Republicans, but from other experts about just how this might be damaging, you know, the youth, people who access to it. You know, it used to be you, you know, you had a, a joint in the, in the 60s or 70s, you know, it probably wasn't a big deal. But if you have regular access to potent edibles and sort of unregulated types of products that, you know, there, there's greater health harms. And that could be anything ranging from psychosis in young people whose brains are not developed to addiction. Even as marijuana has expanded in many, many states, I think there's still, there is a growing consensus that, you know, it may be there. We need to moder, take a harder look at how it's proliferating.
- [11:00]
Martine Powers
After the break, I keep talking with David about whether reclassifying marijuana will make it easier and cheaper to buy. We'll be right back.
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Asma Khalid
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- [13:30]
Martine Powers
So David, as you noted, part of this change in classification for marijuana will mean that there's a difference in medical research and how scientists can study effects of marijuana. Tell me a little bit more about how that will work. Like what does this change allow for scientists and doctors to do?
- [13:50]
David Ovalle
It's going to be interesting to see how this plays out because historically it's been very, very difficult to research marijuana because under Schedule 1 it's very tightly restricted. So to study marijuana you have to have lots of different permissions from the Drug Enforcement Administration and get marijuana from specific growers that are DEA approved. And the research that's ongoing into marijuana is really runs the gamut. I mean, you have research into some of the obvious ones like PTSD with veterans, chronic Pain, dealing with cancer and cancer treatment, dealing with the side effects from chemotherapy and then even things like autism. So it really does run the gamut. So in theory, this schedule change should make that kind of research a bit easier. You won't have to get as many permits and the paperwork and everything should be sped up. But that being said, there's still going to be significant challenges in researching marijuana. And part of that has to do with the fact that there's so much product already out there. And so it's one thing to kind of research marijuana that's, you know, grown specifically to federal government standards, but then, you know, it's a lot harder to research the things that people are actually using, right? The products that are sort of maybe loosely regulated or not regulated at all, or just kind of out there in different dispensaries in different states that are going to have varying quality and varying standards. So that's going to be one of the things where the market has really overtaken the, the science. And that is not something that's going to be as easy to discern even when marijuana goes to schedule three.
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Martine Powers
Well, then let's talk more about that kind of open market for marijuana too. Like, will this have any effect on businesses, dispensaries, like people or places that sell marijuana or marijuana byproducts?
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David Ovalle
It probably will. And I think the biggest way it's going to benefit the cannabis industry is it's going to allow sort of your standard business tax write offs. Right. So under a provision of the tax code, any company that deals with Schedule 1 drugs cannot do those sort of normal business expenses that normal businesses do. Right. So that makes the cost of business, business that makes profits, that makes things very, very difficult for cannabis companies at the federal level. Even if you're working in a state where it's legal, right. California, Colorado, you know, New Mexico, wherever. So it's been an industry that has really kind of fallen on tough times in certain ways because, you know, it's just only these big marijuana companies that are really making profits. And even then it's still the margins are not great because there's just so many tax issues and regulations. And, and so that's also kind of led to an illic or gray market in cannabis products that sort of served as this competition. So within the cannabis industry there's like a lot of tension points. Right. So this should help cannabis companies be able to sort of work as normal businesses do. So I think that's going to be sort of where we see it the most. And I think that has the potential to really transform how the industry operates.
- [17:02]
Martine Powers
And what about on the consumer side? Like, if it's making, if this change could make it easier for some of these companies to operate, to have, have slightly larger profit margins, does that mean that for people who buy marijuana that it'll be cheaper or easier to get.
- [17:19]
David Ovalle
It's still going to be a controlled substance at the federal level. So this is all going to come down to the state. So it may vary from state to state. The added wrinkle is marijuana will now be a Schedule 3 and every other substance in the Schedule 3 category is an FDA, a food and Drug Administration approved substance. Right. Whether it's ketamine, whether it's steroids. So there's going to be a lot of pressure on the FDA to regulate marketing, to regulate, you know, sort of the claims that are made on these, on, on marijuana products. But I think most people in the cannabis industry would say, well, it's not really going to change that much and FDA will probably keep a hands off approach. It's sort of uncharted territory. And I think it's going to be interesting to see how the federal government reacts to, or sort of incorporates marijuana into its bureaucracy.
- [18:06]
Martine Powers
All right, so before we go, just to be clear, I mean, this schedule change, it's not official yet, right? Like, it's still up in the air. What's the timeline for this? Like, how, how quickly are we expecting this to go through?
- [18:19]
David Ovalle
You know, that's, it's still kind of up in the air because while the Justice Department is basically been told to expedite this, it still has to go through a lot of, you know, bureaucracy and hoops to make sure that it's final. Plus there's also a window for, for lawsuits to challenge it. So there's going to be litigation over this for sure. And that could also hold things up. So I wouldn't expect the schedule change to be finalized within the next couple weeks, but probably the next several months to a year or more and really then we'll have a better sense of just how far reaching this historic change will become.
- [19:07]
Martine Powers
David, thank you so much for explaining on this. Really appreciate it.
- [19:10]
David Ovalle
Thank you. Appreciate it.
- [19:15]
Martine Powers
David Ovalle covers opioids and addiction for the Post. That's it for Post reports. Thanks for listening. A new year is on the horizon. And guess what? Your 2026 savings start here for four weeks of access only $2 to read everything that the Washington Post has to offer. That is for the first six months. After that, it'll cost $12 every four weeks. Still a deal. Cancel anytime. You'll get unlimited access to trusted journalism that helps you understand the year ahead and the world around you. Now's the perfect time to subscribe because great habits and great savings start together. Go to washingtonpost.com subscribe again. That is washingtonpost.com subscribe and start your year informed with the Washington Post. Today's show was produced by Emma Talkoff. It was mixed by Sean Carter and edited by Ariel Plotnick. Thanks to Chris Rowland. I'm Martine Powers. We'll be back tomorrow with more stories from the Washington Post. Coast.
- [20:32]
Asma Khalid
America is changing and so is the world.
- [20:37]
Tristan Redman
But what's happening in America isn't just a cause of global upheaval. It's also a symptom of disruption that's happening everywhere.
- [20:45]
Asma Khalid
I'm Asma Khalid in Washington, D.C. i'm.
- [20:47]
Tristan Redman
Tristan Redman in London, and this is the Global Story.
- [20:51]
Asma Khalid
Every weekday, we'll bring you a story from this intersection where the world and America meet.
- [20:57]
Tristan Redman
Listen on BBC.com or wherever you get your podcasts this giving season. Don't miss a special edition of the Washington Post's Try this Podcast brought to you by the Michael J. Fox foundation for Parkinson's Research. The series explores the science and psychology of generosity and includes practical tips on how giving can benefit not only others, but ourselves. And don't miss a special segment from the Michael J. Fox foundation, which is dedicated to finding better treatments and a cure for Parkinson's. Find out about the impact the foundation is making and how you can be a part of it. Visit the Try this podcast page on washingtonpost.com or wherever you get your podcasts.